David and Heather Pitt at Feizor, on the route of A Pennine Journey, with Ron Scholes, left, who collaborated on the guide
Aficionados of the late Alfred Wainwright have passed on responsibility for a route following his first long-distance walk to a new group.
The Pennine Journey Supporters’ Club will take over promotion and oversight of the route, from Settle in North Yorkshire and back again, along the eastern and western Pennines.
The route follows, with a few diversions, the paths taken by a young Wainwright just before the outbreak of the Second World Way, the account of which lay virtually unseen until A Pennine Journey was published almost 50 years after the trip.
Cumbrian residents David and Heather Pitt have been instrumental in setting up the new route, and are currently working with highway authorities along the route to set up waymarking.
Ordnance Survey has agreed to include the route on its maps once waymarking is complete. Funds from sales of the Pitts’ guidebook, which is produced in the style of Wainwright’s guides but follows the up-to-date paths, are being used for waymarking.
Derek Cockell of the Wainwright Society said: “This new body, in the course of being established, will have as its primary purpose the support and promotion of the Pennine Journey and its founder members are comprised mainly of Wainwright Society members who have been involved with the Pennine Journey project since its inception in 2005.
“The name of the new body reflects Alfred Wainwright’s membership of Blackburn Rovers Supporters Club at the time he walked his 1938 Pennine Journey.
“The club will seek to engage with local communities and organisations in achieving its aims which if successful will bring economic benefits to those communities through which the route passes.
“The management committee of the Wainwright Society has recognised that for the Pennine Journey to make a real impact there is a need for the ‘responsible organisation’ to be more locally based when compared to the widespread membership of the society.”
He added that the society wished the new club well and looked forward to seeing the route waymarked as early as possible.
